How to properly wean the baby from the breast

How much to feed a baby with a baby is a personal matter for every single mother, we can be indignant at those who gave up feeding at 3 months and admire those who fed them up to 2.5 years - but none of us have the real right to blame and reproach. In life, everything is not as simple as it seems. Sometimes a young mother wants to breastfeed her child longer, but she just does not get it - and that's the problem. But there are difficult situations for those who were able to endure all the lactation crises and improve breastfeeding, putting it "on a broad foot". And the main problem is the end of this feeding. The article "How to properly wean the child from the breast" will tell you how and when to start this difficult process in order to do the least damage to yourself and the baby.

Perhaps, the longer a woman breastfeeds, the more often and sharply she has a question: "How to wean the child from the breast?". After all, there is an opinion that the more grown your baby is, the harder it will be for him to part with his beloved sisey. However, doctors all agree that everything is just the opposite. Just up to a year the kid can not yet verbally and with actions express his protest - therefore it seems that the excommunication passes more peacefully. In fact, an adult child will soon begin to lose the physiological need to satisfy the sucking reflex - and he can independently abandon the breast. Although few people are waiting for this moment.

It would be correct to excommunicate the baby from the breast at about the age of one and a half to two and a half years. Just for this period there is a so-called involution of the mammary glands, as a result of which the stock of milk is exhausted in the breast and it changes its composition, returning to the original colostrum. It can be said that the breast of a nursing mother completes its cycle. In fact remember, how in the very beginning, the first months three after sorts or labors, you tested terrible discomfort, and even a pain when there was a molochko? That's right - it was the process of becoming lactation, when the chest tried to "guess" how much the baby needs to get enough. Then everything came back to normal, and the breast stopped changing in size, like a rubber ball in children's hands. All the initial processes settled, they were replaced by a period of mature lactation, when the breast began to produce clearly as much milk as the baby needs. And after this period, the same involution comes with a change in the amount and composition of milk, during which it is recommended to wean the baby from the breast.

There is another reason for not taking the time to deprive the baby of pleasure of sucking the mother's breast. Now we are not talking about the well-known fact that breastfeeding directly affects the level of intelligence of the baby. It is also important that if you throw a crumb to breastfeed at the wrong time, then there is a risk that he will seriously become ill. While the indices of this risk are reduced almost to zero, if you finish lactation after 1.5 years.

Sometimes it is difficult to understand that the period of involution of lactation has already come, but there are several basic and notable principles from which it can be confidently asserted that this period really has come.

1. Involution can not advance before the crumb turns out to be a year and three months, but it should be oriented for a period of 1.5 years to 2 years.
2. If before the breastfeeding brought you joy, now it has become very boring you - you feel bad, it seems that the child drank all vital energy. Sometimes it's hard even to get up from the sofa, you want to lie down and fall asleep next to the child.
3. If after the lactation was adjusted, the baby sucked the breast in a measured manner, then during the involution he will begin to torture your breasts more than before, since the milk becomes less affordable. In addition, he can not be satisfied with one breast for one feeding may require a second. It reminds him of his first feeding, when he sucked hysterically, often choked on and could not adjust to the pressure of milk.
4. The fourth sign is very blurred and consists in the fact that the mother is experiencing psychological fatigue and from feeding, and even in places from the baby itself. But it can be inspired by an outside opinion - they say, you need to finish feeding by the year, for example. And Mom after a year understands that it's time to quit, and begins to adjust themselves to the fact that it's time to wean the child. Listen to yourself, and not to other people - are you really tired? ..

Now let's start the most common ways of weaning the crumbs about the chest. I do not want to talk about a few "barbaric" options - such as smearing the nipples with mustard or bandaging the breast with a sheet. By the way, the latter definitely does not stop lactation, but to promote the development of mastitis can easily!

The first way: "A mother is not!"

Just note: this method is unlikely to suit mummies with pronounced fanaticism about everything that concerns their baby. Also, it may not be available to you for another reason: for example, in your city you do not have close relatives, preferably grandparents.

So, it consists that mum should simply live separately from the child within a week (the optimum term, it is possible little bit less it will depend on those who has remained with the kid and from its reaction to absence of mum). As you have already understood, for this period the child needs to be left with his grandparents who should apply all their tenderness and love, lure the baby so that he does not remember about the breast. Perhaps, the first night will be difficult - but the crumb for a couple of days will get to sleep in a new way. And then my mother can return home, comment at the same time that she does not have milk anymore - if, of course, the child has such a question.

During such excommunication, it is important to tell grandmother that she does not give the baby a pacifier or a bottle of food at night - in fact, thus, she will simply replace the mother with the items, and when the mother returns - the baby will still demand something to suck. That's what really can be useful to you in the middle of the night - it's a drink for a baby, because he's used to drinking milk in a dream, so he may be thirsty.

When Mom comes home, probably the baby will try to demand a breast - but you should gently and unshakably explain to him that milk is no more. This is always accompanied by a stressful state of the baby, so during this period you need to pay him a lot of attention, it's better to think up something new or to do his favorite thing.

The second way: "We do not eat at night"

Night feeding is the heaviest for moms, often when the child is already an adult, he eats just before bedtime - lunch and evening, so we must wean him so that he will now be without sisi. In this you will be helped by all the same irreplaceable dad or grandmother who will sing to the lullaby and softly lull, then they will leave to sleep near themselves so that the smell of milk does not wake up the crumb. As a result, the child wakes up the night feeding and slowly disaccustoms to this tradition. The method is reliable, but it will take more time - about a month.

Whichever way you choose, the most important is the attitude, you must be sure that you are doing the right thing. If you decide to wean the crumbs from the chest - be consistent and do not let him suck the milk. He will be capricious and scream - and you must be gentle, but inexorable. Sisi no. There is no milk. Only then you can transfer the baby to adult nutrition and forget about breastfeeding.

We wish you luck and patience in this difficult matter! Weigh all the pros and cons, do not try to get rid of breastfeeding as soon as possible, if the time has not yet come - and then you will be able to wean the crumbs from the chest painlessly for both of you, and the baby will grow strong and healthy.